A time when I’d hated her with the same fierceness.

When I finally nodded off that night, I dreamed of Holby City and spewing volcanoes and an eight-year-old girl who’d hung upside down in a smashed-up car on the edge of the M25. I woke at three in the morning and my eyes were instantly drawn to the sliver of light in the downstairs bedroom window, framed by a tightly pulled set of curtains that didn’t quite reach.

Because she was here now, my family. And, like my dawn walks with Gentleman, she was becoming a habit. I said good morning, good afternoon and sometimes even goodnight to her. I made her coffee, and we sat in a pigeon pair of armchairs while she pretended to doze and I scribbled words to strangers and watched her watch me from the corner of her eye, from the corner of my eye.

But after sixteen years the taste of guilt and blame in my mouth felt warm and sweet and familiar, and I didn’t know if I was ready to give it up. I could feel it nudging the back of my throat, waiting for me to slip up after six pints, which could definitely have had something to do with why I seemed to be staying away from the Lamb.

I lay there staring over at the break in the curtains until the sun came up, then I got out of bed and pulled on my clothes. Gentleman was already waiting for me.

24

Wolfie

On the day of Lou’s accident, when I’d been called out of English to go up to the head’s office and he very kindly invited me to sit down, I knew what was coming. Not the details – I mean, it’s not an exact science like the mind reading – but when those two things happen together it definitely signals something big is up.

I didn’t sit down, though, I just put both hands on the edge of his desk, leaned forward and said, ‘Lay it on me, Kev.’

Mr Kevacovic didn’t even flinch at the flagrant abuse of his name, which was my third clue to the bigness of what was up. He got up and walked around and put his hand on my arm and said, ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Wolfie, your mother’s been in an accident. But don’t worry, she’s OK, she’s OK.’ And then he said he was going to drive me to the hospital straight away. And that she was OK.

I muttered, ‘Ella está bien, ella está bien,’ under my breath, so I could believe him.

On the drive there in his Tiffany-blue Mini Cooper (weird, because I’d always pictured him in a muddy Land Rover), Mr Kevacovic told me the police said the delivery driver who’d hit Lou on her moped had swerved so hard to avoid her the van had tipped right over on its side. He kept interrupting himself at regular intervals to repeat that Lou was OK, but I barely listened because I was repeating the words I most needed to hear, over and over in my head. My mother’s had an accident. It was an accident. Information Kev couldn’t possibly have known that, to me, was equally as important as the fact she was OK.